Welcome to our studio test scene

After many, many months of design and testing we are happy to announce the official unveiling of our studio test scene. The new scene was designed to address certain drawbacks with the previous test scene, as well as providing the opportunity to show more real-world relevant information about how cameras behave. We've increased the number of cameras supported to 23 and we'll be continuing to add models (old and new) in the coming weeks.

You can read a more detailed explanation of the scene, what it offers, how we shoot it and why we needed it in an article by our Studio Manager, Kelcey Smith.

Great to see this comparison on dpreview. I’ve tested an IQ180 against a D800 myself and of course got similar results. In my more real world tests though the IQ180 is a lot harder to use in certain situations, like in a dark church, but then you’d expect that given its ISO range. It makes up for these shortcomings against the D800 in the studio or for landscapes which is why I want to add one to my permanent bag when funds allow. :-)

I feel so very happy, because I have a d800 and look the difference is so close, I think that take a great chance buy this camera. 36mpx vs 80mpx, wow so many pixels, but 36 is to much detail for me. I shoot portrait, landscapes and pet , the d800 show the best tool in any condition scene, just awesome

The IQ180 is very impressive, but unless the end result is huge poster prints I just see it as a huge waste of money. If you are shooting for even a two page spread you won't see the benefit and it's overkill and pointless. Over twice the resolution but 10 - 12 times the price.If I win the national lottery I'll have two bodies with prime lenses on each - until then I'll stick with either the 5DmkIII or D800.

looking at the paint tubes in the lower right of the scene in "low light" mode the edges of the cast shadows from the tube to the background are much softer in the iq180 shot than the 5DIII or D800 images. Looks like positioning and distance of the light changed. Is this really sensor / lens difference?

How on earth do you get to the new test scene from the menus? If you go to the studio test scene menu, and select a camera for which samples from thew new test scene are available (E-M5 for example) it still takes you to the old test scene.

Lots of good ideas:- comeback of the two line-charts. I missed them in the previous test-scene. - PhaseOne reference rocks! Its resolution is incredible and very useful to compare details. - dim light function: cool, but I wonder if it is really reproducible- print and web- buttons: gets us back to the real world

In your explanation of the new studio scene you wrote: "The light source used in this low-light mode is a single standard household tungsten bulb ..." I am not sure, if this light source delivers reproducible light e.g. in terms of colour temerature or light distribution during its time of operation. Perhaps you could give some further information.

It would be nice if there was an option to show the comparison windows to the right of the overall window - most of us use a wide format screen (16x9) on our computers. Scrolling up and down to access the cursor is a major pain when changing the viewing area - maybe your web site page can be rearranged when using this great tool !!! Thanks

Why were WB and exposure corrected for some cameras? I think the jpeg images should be taken at default settings, with no adjustments. That would be useful for people who don't know or care what all the buttons are for. Raw shows the rest of us what we need to know.

I'm curious - The Olympus OM-D E-M5 and the PEN E-P5 have identical sensors and processors. The lens specs for each test are identical. Yet the E-M5 samples are consistently higher quality than the PEN throughout the image, at all ISOs, in low light or regular, JPEG or RAW. What other factors are at play here?

Thanks for this, Stu. So there is contradictory information in the lens stats...huh. Not much value in this comparison then, except to reiterate how good the 50/2.0 is, which we all know by now! I'd really like to know if the E-P5 stacks up to the E-M5.

If you compare the RX1R and the D800, you can see that the light is not consistent. The light on the pallets is different, not showing the metal texture of the pallet for the RX1R. You can see also see the difference at the paint tubes.

Waaahhhh!!!! There's no substitute for megapixels and German lenses! The Phase is just so much better than every other camera! Where am I going to get $47,000? I may have to switch to watercolors...at least the water is free.

Great job DPR! You've really created a useful scene--especially in the middle to outer parts of the frame where all the really great photographs are.

See the i symbol in the low right corner. They just use random sharp lenses. For example, for NEX-6 they use Alpha-mount DT 50/1.8 through adapter - a combination almost no customer will ACTUALLY use given that the camera comes with a kit 16-50 and a reasonably priced native 50/1.8 OSS is available.Also, who cares about resolution at portrait FLs and portrait distances with portrait lenses? Who actually strives to show every pore on the face of your victim? ;)Their tests would be so much more useful with kit lenses at 28mm eq for static scenes and 75-85 mm eq for AF tracking - all at least 2m high.

"We try to make sure there are plenty of real-world shots with the kit lenses in our galleries."

Unfortunately, they are all different in different conditions so not directly comparable.As it is so far, the test scene might fool a person who does not know the details into thinking the camera kit will give better results than it actually is.Thinking about it, I would test just by setting shutter speed (say, 1/1000 to test the most common speed able to freeze human body motion, like running children) and varying light. Whatever aperture and ISO a camera selects (and the kit lens would allow) is what the most people would get, underexposure, overexposure etc.

Camera Manufacturers and advertisers, take notice. This is the main reason why I check this site. As a camera enthusiast, I purchase camera related products mainly because of this site. My opinion here is voluntary and without precondition.

I have no bias towards any camera systems, and I have changed camera system all together in the past based on the best camera for me. I am probably not the only one that fits into this marketing population.

Your Olympus E-M5 Raw files show they are taken with a 45mm f1.8 when you hover over the 'i' button for information but when you download them them they have been taken on a 50mm f2. You need to either reshoot them with a 45mm f1.8 or reshoot the E-M1 files with a 50mm f2.

Excellent ,thanks. One request. The 'Print' size appears to be set for 8 Mp (howering the mouse over the tab shows this); I thought your goal was to set the print size for an A2 print - which realistically would need a lot higher resolution than 8 Mp?

At 300 dpi and A2 print of 23.4 x 16.5:

23.4 x 16.5 X 300 x 300 = 34,749,000 or 34 Mp.

I guess you were assuming 150 dpi - the same calculation then gives 8,867,250... i.e. about 8 Mp.

Would it be possible to have a second tab set to e.g. 24 Mp, since a lot of cameras have that resolution or very close? With upscaling for cameras with lower resolution sensors? 24 Mp would be roughly equivalent to an A2 print at 254 dpi, which I know some labs use.

would appreciate if possible, to have several print sizes (pixel counts) that the highest resolution is automatically chosen among the current cameras compared.

of same size with same pixel counts, print mode is still not good for comparison between different aspect ratios for they have different magnifications (3:2 images are stretched 12.5% larger thus lower image quality).

I see a common resolution for the common 4:3 area. the left and right of a 3:2 sensor are effectively cut off by DPReview already (or same number of pixels for a certain subject, which doesn't translate to same fraction of sensor area though, the test always favors 4:3 sensors by 0.17 stops).

The issue is that the 8 MP test doesn't differentiate the cameras sufficiently - they all look pretty good at ISO 6400. 8MP/A3 is not really looking at the real-world situations where it would really matter - for example in wedding photography, where low light is a frequent issue, and where big enlargements are needed to fill a double-page album spread - 24 " or 600mm. Hence my interest in an A2 test at reasonable dpi. Which as above, translates to 20-24 MP.

The test scene is now fairly irrelevant imo? Such is the step-up in iq from the d800 to the phase1 the bench in now so high as percieved against a phase1 I think you have used the wrong test scene. You should of used at most the 40mp MF 645D and probably the d800 as the benchmark and then pulled back for possible future iterations of the sensor upto 40mp+ As it stands the phase1 essentially demonstrates the detail at which the d800 should of been able to detect, ie you have too big a scene and you are too far away!

I still have to force myself to look at the new test scene. The old one just looked much better and I really miss my favorite object, the watch. Is it not possible to replace some doubles (brushes with paint tubes and playing cards with the color wheel with some real life items, like the watch and the robot? Items like this tell me so much more than the portrait photos. The need to have these items double escapes me. And I miss a shadow detail item like the old box with yarn bobbins. I also think it should be possible to zoom in further in the detail windows. Now it is in some comparisons impossible to see difference in resolution, for instance the banknote and brushes. In the end I will get used to the new test scene, but there is (my opinion) room for improvement.Your site is the best!

Doubling is hugely important. In fact everything should be quadrupled apart from what is in the centre. When you switch to the tungsten setting it allows you to compare the darker area on the left to the brighter area on the right. That way you can see what quality is being lost and if you download the files what effect noise reduction has on raw. It is also a way of telling if the lens/camera is aligned up correctly to the test board.

I miss the shadow detail part and the watch. Generally I hardly see a serious difference between similar cameras on the new test scene. The old one was much more obvious. IMHO, it is a step down!The site is the best!

Thanks guy for what are you doing. I would appreciate if you could also test camera bodies with kit lenses. Would be interesting to see what can can combo do straight out of box. I know its fine to know what can you expect from prime lens+camera but still it would be interesting IMHO

Then all the people who don't use kit lenses will complain. There are plenty of other sites like slrgear.com that test the whole gamut of lenses for you. Here we want to see how the sensor performs with a decent lens.

OMG! Just check out the upper left side pallet for various cameras at various ISO settings such that there is a horizontal line crossing through the middle of brown brush-creme brush and sponge. Below that line is dark, upper side is normal. ALL CAMERAS show that defect. Some start just at ISO100, some at higher ISO's. WTH? Defected CD, harddisk, memory card, etc? Or a real sensor problem?I guess there is a weak spot in all cameras sensors or processing ways since it is very unlikely to record the same scene to bad media for all cameras which will show up the same defected place(since all photo sizes are different for all different cams). If it is a known fact but I haven't heard of that well known defect, pardon me for my ignorance which resulted after pixel peeping. But after now, I know where to look at for ALL TESTS! :)I am curious whether PHASE ONE IQ180 also shows up this defect for upper ISO settings(at ISO35 there is no defect in that camera's photo)

Some cameras have rectangular defected areas (NIKON D800, D7100, SONY NEX6, PENTAX K500 which is on the upper left side or top of the sponge). I guess these cameras share the same sensor and same defect! :)

IMHO, this new test scene showed the fault of the whole camera industry (however all RAW images show the same defect as well).The situation is even more serious since ALL RAW IMAGES are not RAW but they look processed as well! Why on earth a RAW image shows the same JPEG conversion failures as well. So, all our RAW images are pre-processed RAW images (which look cleaner than the real RAW). Believe it or not both ISO35 JPG and RAW images of IQ180 shows the same failure as well. I lost all my trust to digital cams. I am ready to be prohibited from pixelpeeping forever and/or forced to live on an island with a Large Format film camera!

LOL...nevermind the Phase One uses a huge lens, a huge sensor, and huge pixels and all extremely high quality with a price to match. That doesn't have anything to do with the Phase One killing everything else in terms of detail resolution.

Thank you, dpReview, for all you do and for trying to deal with this issue.But your current effort is very disappointing. I understand the difficulties and intent, but this is not a good solution. With a lack of 3-D curved objects, it is very difficult to see how the cameras do in attempting to draw subtle tonal gradations. Also, another critical element is how they do handling real skin tones, including the very difficult yellows and magentas in some skin - does it make it blotchy or does it render it smoothly. There are many other issues too.For my purposes, the Imaging Resources test target does a much better job.

Where are the feathers? These were what I used as a bird photographer to assess what the cameras made of fine complex detail. Please put some feathers (like the green one by the blue vw in the old studio scene) back again.Otherwise, very good job and more useful.

The feathers are near the bottom left and top right, sticking out from the green fuzzy things. Matter of fact, it looks liek the green fuzzy things have green feathers at the bottoms of them. Check it out in the 180 reference shot

You can even read the dates on all three of the Canadian coins with the Phase. 1990, 1958 and 1962. To everyone over the past year in these forums who've tried to tell me the D800's OK, medium format's outdated or that AA filters are there for the betterment of the photos, here's your proof. And DPR, please add the K-5 IIs to the cameras on this test scene :D thanks!

Good job on the new test scene, DPR. After reading about a hundred of these comments I suggest DPR create a limited run of 1,000 suitable for framing prints, on archival paper, of the previous test scene. Sell these to the aficionados who have become emotionally attached to the old scene. Invest the proceeds in faster reviews. It's a win-win.

I hope that DPR will include older cameras that are no longer in production. It is very important to be able to compare with older cameras. Last, PLEASE include Foveon-based and the Pentax 645D cameras!!!

not a big problem if all the apertures on all the lenses are carefully tested, as well as all the shutter speeds used on each tested camera. this is the right way to go.

use of a certain copy of lens for several different mounts can simplify the time consuming process. it may run into problem in the future for sensors of different sizes but could be a good alternative at the moment.

With filmmakers using ever-lower light levels (some scenes of "Game of Thrones" were lit with candles and torches) I think he means real candlelight. So go to the local Salvation Army and buy a couple of candelabras, try that for a while.